Little Alice's Palace; or, The Sunny Heart

								

the brook near the little child's home.
"All day long alone, while mother is away at her work," answered the
child, with her eyes full of sad tears.
"And what do you do with the weary hours?  Do they not seem very dull and
dreary to you?" asked the lady.
"Ah, yes," said the little one.  "I have nobody to play with or talk to;
and I'm glad when the night comes and I can creep into bed and shut my
eyes and forget everything."
"What if you had some kind friend ever near, to smile on you and bless
you,--somebody to whom you could tell all your little sorrows as you are
now doing to me?" said the lady.  "Would that be pleasant?"
"Oh yes, indeed!" returned the child.  "Will you stay?" for she had felt
it very sweet to be sitting there with the kind lady's words falling like
music upon her ear, and her heart was lighter and happier than it had
been in all her life.
"I cannot always be with you," said the lady.  "But there is One who
'will never leave you.'  How beautiful he has made everything about you!"
And she looked upon the green earth, with the peeping flowers, and upon
the delicate shrubs that skirted the roadside, and the wild-roses and
creeping plants along the hedges, and then she looked up into the blue
heavens, with such an expression of love that the child gazed at her with
rapture.
"Such a good God!" said the lady, still looking up with the bright light
upon her face.  "And such a wondrously beautiful world, where we may walk
joyously, with his love in our hearts as well as all about our path; and
yet we sit in the dust weeping, and forget that he is our Father, and
that he is watching for us to turn towards him--poor, wandering, wayward
children that we are!"
Though the lady spoke as if to herself, the child knew that she was
thinking of her; for she had not quite put away the shame of her first
appearance; and she touched her white hand timidly with her brown finger,
and said, really in earnest, "I won't sit in the dirt again."
"That's a dear child," said her friend.  "You must never again forget
that, although you are poor, and must live in this world for a while, you
are in truth a little exiled princess, and your glorious home is with the
great King, your Father, in the skies; and it does not become the
daughter of so great a King to put herself on a level with the beasts;
but you must lift yourself up more and more towards heaven."
The little girl looked at her, and straightened her figure to its
greatest possible height.
"Not to carry yourself proudly, as the daughter of an earthly king might
do," continued the lady, "but be above doing a mean or low thing, and try
to be heavenly and pure, like your blessed Lord and Father; and then he
will lift you up to his beautiful, high throne."
The child's head drooped again, and she looked despondingly at her
teacher, as if she did not really know what to do.